


Where The Nightmares Are

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 11:42:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18445853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "Good day. I haven’t been in this fandom long but from what I gathered Pitch used to be human. I think, after his failure with taking over the world, that the nightmares went to punish him so he’d be more broken and couldn’t escape their hold or something.So to fully break him they attack the kids Jack look after, making sure he is of sound human mind but unable to move to help them. They end up killing a little girl leaving Pitch broken.Bonus:A guardian or some other spirit sees this and tries to stop it.They find some way to either kill or seal Pitch awayNo Happy ending"Uh…good day to you, too, anon. WARNING: death.After being left alone in the darkness for some time, Pitch’s nightmares take a drastically different turn.





	Where The Nightmares Are

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 3/25/2015.

This is what Pitch knows. This is what Pitch knows because it is what he has seen. And if he does not believe what he has seen, where will he be?  
  
The nightmares dragged him under the ground. They dragged him under the ground and for a time he knew nothing but darkness. This is what he expected. He had made the nightmares well, and so of course they should leave him alone in the darkness.  
  
And then it all changed with one thought. He wondered why, as the one and only boogeyman, he should be so displeased with loneliness and darkness. And at once the lair appeared around him. Not bright, for it was never bright, but visible.  
  
Visible, and empty of nightmares.  
  
Baffled, he left through the entrance above him. The tunnel seemed the same. When he emerged the bed was not there, but he was still in the woods near Burgess.  
  
He wandered through the strangely empty streets. Well, maybe not strangely. He knew less about wandering through small towns than he should. He had wanted to avoid the risk of being walked through more than he had wanted to learn, or do anything else. Surely a problem, but not one for tonight, perhaps.   
  
Why is the town so silent? Where is anyone?  
  
He finds himself standing outside the house of the last light.  
  
This is also where he finds the nightmares. They mill about the yard, and though they do not notice him, they make him deeply uneasy. When one tramples a bush, he realizes why. They’re interacting with the physical world, and only he is watching. He never made them to do that.  
  
They raise their heads, sniffing at the upstairs window, gnashing their teeth.  
  
He had never known them to eat anything before, but now, how can he be sure what they will do?   
  
One walks toward him, then, a silhouette against the milder darkness of a small town night. He doesn’t run. The nightmares are faster than him, after all.  
  
As if to prove this, faster than he can see, the nightmare moves behind him and bites down on his shoulder with sharper teeth than he remembers giving them. He really can’t run away now; he can only go where the nightmare wants. The nightmare wants him to move forward.  
  
Below the window of the last light, the nightmares pace back and forth. Their forms are confusing in the dim light, and Pitch thinks they even might pass through each other. Anyone who looked out the window might think they floated on a sickening sea of motor oil.  
  
As if on cue, Jamie pushes the panes wide, Sophie at his side. “No!” Pitch shouts, as if he already knows what’s going to happen. But how could he? He never made the nightmares to do this. It was the one thing they shouldn’t be able to do. They shriek, drowning him out. They leap up, catching Sophie by her pajamas, by her hands, by her hair.  
  
Pitch and Jamie scream longer than she does.  
  
This is what Pitch knows, because this is what Pitch has seen. He has seen his nightmares tear a little girl apart. He has seen a child die because of what he has created. He has seen the worst thing he could imagine, far worse than any emptiness. And he has seen other terrible things. He saw Jamie unsurprised that he was there. He saw Jamie surprised that Pitch should scream in horror at the nightmares.   
  
And he understands that this is what the nightmares led everyone to think of him. And he understands, too late, that he is not that boogeyman.   
  
Around him, the nightmares mill.  
  
As they always do. 

**Author's Note:**

> I mean to imply that the nightmares and Pitch had never left the lair at all, that the nightmares had found out that deep, deep, down, Pitch didn’t want children to be really hurt, and so the nightmares filled his head with this new vision. Did that come across?


End file.
